In meeting, Messina praised Sherrod handling

By Ben Smith

07/21/10 11:38 AM EDT

In a closed staff meeting Tuesday morning, a senior administration praised elements of the White House's initial response to a partial video of a speech by a Department of Agriculture official — a response that the Administration has since reversed.

White House officials yesterday afternoon told reporters they did not press Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to demand the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, but that they stood by the hasty decision; last night, they took credit for pressing Vilsack to rehire her when a fuller video revealed that her remarks had been edited to mean the opposite of what she said.

But three Democratic sources said deputy chief of staff Jim Messina singled out the White House's initial response to the incident for praise in the regular 8:30 a.m. staff meeting Tuesday morning. The sources differed on the substance of Messina's praise, but concurred that he had praised the speed of White House communications in response to the flap, which was driven by a misleadingly edited video posted to Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website.

One source, who is unhappy with the administration's handling of the incident, paraphrased Messina's remarks: "We could have waited all day — we could have had a media circus — but we took decisive action, and it’s a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere."

But two other senior officials present at the meeting, who responded to a call to the White House press office, said the gist of Messina's words had been conveyed to POLITICO inaccurately, and that Messina — a top political operative and senior manager — was merely speaking in his capacity as deputy chief of staff for Operations and "cheerleader" to boost staffers' morale.

Messina was merely praising the White House staff for "communicating well, sharing well, basically rising to the occasion" on the Sherrod story, one official said. "It was an institutional or procedural point."

Messina could not have been praising a White House decision to fire Sherrod, the source said, because the decision was made by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

UPDATE: Gibbs, in the briefing, offered a vague denial that Messina praised the handling of the Sherrod case. “I’ve seen the reports of what somebody believed Jim said,” he said. “I did not hear Jim say that.”